Boston Simulation Research and Education Meeting Tonight at CMS 5:30-7:00 PM

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Join us this evening from 5:30-7:00 PM as CMS hosts the Boston Simulation Community Research and Education Meeting at its offices at 65 Landsdowne Street, 1st Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139.

TONIGHT:

A Conversation with Helen Reiss, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, on the Neurobiology of Difficult Conversations.Many members of the Boston Simulation Community have been grappling with how to use simulation to teach and research the challenges of speaking up, giving critical feedback, and other difficult conversations.  Dr. Helen Reiss’s work provides us a new perspective on why these conversations are so hard and how to transcend these difficulties.

About Dr. Reiss:  Dr. Helen Riess is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.  She conducts translational research utilizing the neuroscience of emotions in educational curricula to improve empathy and relational skills in physicians and other health care providers. In 2010 Dr. Riess was a topic leader and consultant on the Coalition for Physician Communication that led a Quality Improvement initiative to enhance communication in 1500 physicians at MGH.

Committed to medical education, Dr. Riess has taught in the Psychiatry Residency Program at MGH since completing her own residency and research fellowship at MGH. She completed a Rabkin Medical Education Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She was also a Harvard Macy Scholar at the Harvard Macy Institute for Educators in the Health Professions in 2009. There, she designed a research protocol to test her Empathy Training Program (ETP). She conducted a randomized, controlled trial of ETP at MGH and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in 2010, which demonstrated significant improvement in patient perception of physician empathy. Her approach is being used at the individual and organizational level to improve interpersonal communication in healthcare.

Dr. Riess has received research funding from the Risk Management Foundation, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation for Medical Education, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine, the David Judah Fund and the Office for Patient Safety at MGH. Dr. Riess is an adult psychiatrist who specializes in psychotherapy and psychopharmacology for mood and anxiety disorders.

Dr. Riess has taught psychotherapy to residents since completing her own residency at MGH. In her role as Director of Education for Psychotherapy Supervision, she designed several curricula, including her book on eating disorders and courses on psychotherapy supervision.

Dr. Riess has written numerous journal articles on risk management, the use of psychophysiology in psychotherapy research, and the necessity for continuing education in patient-doctor relations. She presents her research at national and international conferences.

Upcoming Boston Simulation Community Research and Education Meetings

May 10th:  Marlys Christianson MD, PhD, University of Toronto:  Using simulation to study diagnostic problem solving in Emergency Medicine

June 21st (PLEASE NOTE, this is THIRD Tuesday in June):
Guillermo Ortiz Ruiz, M.D:  Using Simulation to Improve the Management of Sepsis in the ICU
Dr. Ortiz Ruiz, a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician, is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Medical Simulation from March-July 2011.
More on Dr. Ortiz Ruiz:
Director of Critical Care Department
Hospital Santa Clara
Director of Postgraduate Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Universidad el Bosque
Bogota, Colombia

The Boston Simulation Community Research and Education Meetings are held from 5:30-7pm on the second Tuesday of most months at the Center for Medical Simulation at 65 Landsdowne Street, 1st Floor, Cambridge MA.  Our meetings provide a friendly and informal venue for simulation educators and researchers to present work-in-progress, acquaint each other with relevant ideas from other disciplines and connect with others.